"Nonsense, man."
"Nay! I vow such a career has many advantages for a poor man, since he may live and, what is more, die at the public charge."
"You are not in earnest, Charles?" said Mr. Clare, laying an anxious hand upon his friend's wrist.
"And why not, i' faith?"
"What would you gain by such an impulse of folly?"
"My livelihood and, as I said, very possibly my funeral expenses."
"Such flippancy is ill-timed," said Mr. Clare, who was a serious young man and spent much of his leisure with the theory of estate-management.
"Nay! I am not treating the matter as a jest, but truly considering the benefit of adopting such a novel method of existence in these hard times."
"Novel!" said Clare, with a scoffing laugh. "Novel! why, every ne'er-do-weel blackguard for the past hundred years has tried this novel method of existence and every one of them has come at last to the same windy death."
"Oh, as to the last scene," interrupted Charles, "indeed I vow 'tis the best in the play, for it never fails to please the populace, and sure in this dull world a man should try to give a little amusement; I hold that the author of a diverting comedy and the thief who makes a brave exit are the truest benefactors of humanity."